Wings-Ducks set-up

The Anaheim Ducks head into tonight's tilt against the Detroit Red Wings sitting in ninth place in the Western Conference, both five points behind the fifth-place Vancouver Canucks and seven points ahead of the fifteenth-place St. Louis Blues. The Ducks are coming off two straight losses as they dropped an 8-4 decision to the Atlanta Thrashers on Monday and a 4-3 decision to the Los Angeles Kings, who trail the Ducks by only two points, and the Ducks most certainly embark upon what the Ducks' website deems a "make or break six-game road trip tonight.

Several members of the Ducks told the Orange County Register's Mark Whicker that they're embracing the challenges they currently face--as trade rumours swirl around several of the Ducks' most prominent players:

"It's supposed to be harder," Coach Randy Carlyle said, "but we've played some of our best games on the road."

He has a point. It had taken two days to fumigate Honda Center after the Ducks' loss to Atlanta on Sunday night, a night when all the flimsy walls of a season came crashing in.

Carlyle said they spent the interim trying to sharpen their special teams, their defensive coverages. The time for state-of-the-team addresses passed long ago. With Pittsburgh's Michel Therrien getting canned Sunday, less than a year after he coached the Penguins to the Stanley Cup Finals, the inevitable question headed toward Carlyle and he did not fan on it.

He said he didn't know if the Ducks had stopped listening to him -- "you'll have to ask them," he said. He said the thing that "stresses you out" as a coach is wondering when to "kick or coddle" a team, how to clear their minds during turbulent times.
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"We've just been having trouble starting games, starting periods," Chris Kunitz said Wednesday morning. "We can't seem to get that success early, something to build on."

Indeed, the Ducks had given up the first goal in 10 of 11 games coming into Wednesday. It became 11 of 12 when Kyle Calder got around Niedermayer and fed Jarret Stoll, who had slipped inside Brett Hedican and went right to Jonas Hiller's left skate and scored.

The Orange County Register's Dan Wood notes that the Ducks will play without shut-down centre Samuel Pahlsson as he's battling mononucleosis, and defencemen Kent Huskins and Francois Beauchemin remain on the Ducks' IR as well, so the Ducks recalled defencemen Brendan Mikkelson and Brian Salcido before they headed to Detroit.

Niedermayer told the Orange County Register's Dan Wood that his team can't focus upon the trade rumours which dog his team at present, and Wood pointed out that the Ducks feel dogged by a controversy of a different kind:

February 20, Orange County Register: Having seen the club go from Stanley Cup champions to potentially missing the postseason in only two years, General Manager Bob Murray is undoubtedly considering dramatic personnel moves in an effort to re-tool the team sooner rather than later.

"That's really not up to us," Niedermayer said. "Our job is to go out there and compete and focus on being a good hockey club here, and I think that's what we'll do. So I don't expect anything."

Neither did Niedermayer expect to be confined in the penalty box when Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar scored third-period, power-play goals to lift the Kings (25-22-9) to victory. After power-play conversions from Teemu Selanne and Ryan Getzlaf had enabled the Ducks to erase a 2-0 deficit, Niedermayer took a penalty for slashing Kings center Michal Handzus at 9:23. Brown put the Kings in front 12 seconds later, re-directing defenseman Kyle Quincey's point shot.

After being stopped by Kings rookie goaltender Jonathan Quick on a breakaway nearly four minutes later, Niedermayer saw his brother, Ducks right wing Rob Niedermayer, take a cross-checking penalty at 13:37. Only 11 seconds later, Scott Niedermayer collided with Quick behind the net, drawing both charging and roughing calls. With the Ducks down two men, Kopitar capped a pretty three-way passing play that also featured Brown and Jarret Stoll to put the Kings on top 4-2 at 15:23.

"I was going down with quite a bit of speed," Scott Niedermayer said. "The puck was going behind the net. I don't think I really ran him (Quick) over. I don't know if our feet collided or what happened exactly. It was a stupid play. It wasn't my intent. It happened. I guess one thing I am disappointed about is getting the roughing call. I'm pretty sure I didn't touch anybody after it happened."

AnaheimDucks.com's Adam Brady, who got into a little scrap with your favourite blogger courtesy of my own instigation last time around, described the scenario as follows:

February 19, AnaheimDucks.com: Forget the fact that in addition to the charging call the officials gave Niedermayer, they also inexplicably added a roughing penalty during the resulting fracas, even though Niedermayer did very little after the whistle aside from taking some punches to the face from Quick (who somehow wasn't penalized). That hardly matters, since the damage was already done from the charging call. With brother Rob already in the box, that gave the Kings a 5-on-3 in which Anze Kopitar gave L.A. an all-important two-goal lead that all but sealed the victory.

You could just feel the life sucked out of the building after that goal, and even though Chris Kunitz scored to pull the Ducks to within a goal with minutes left, they couldn't manage to find the net another time in the closing minutes. When that final horn sounded with the Ducks hopelessly trying to send the puck into the attacking zone ... well, it ranked up there with car alarms and 5:30 a.m. wakeup calls in the pantheon of Godawful noises.

So with the last night's disappointment fresh in their minds, the Ducks took off on their Road Trip from Hell early this morning -- destination do-or-die. With the NHL trade deadline coming one day after the Ducks finish this vital stretch of six road games in 13 days, you can't help but wonder which of these Ducks played their last game for the team in Honda Center last night. You can't help but wonder, of the guys on that plane this morning, which of them won't be on it when it comes home?
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"I think what we have to do is realize we have an opportunity and a challenge in front of us," Scott Niedermayer said last night. "You can forget everything, what the plan was back in September. We just have to deal with what's in front of us."

And about the road trip, he quietly said, "It'll obviously be tough. We're playing some good teams on the road, but maybe that's what the doctor ordered. Get in, out, get together, just us against everybody else and see how it goes."

With a controversial goal looming large in the Ducks' and Wings' minds from their last meeting, a 4-3 win by the Wings on January 14th, there's no small irony in noting that the Ducks' defenceman who very publicly denied and angrily dismissed the rumours about his supposedly imminent departure from Anaheim, will play his 1,000th game in Detroit. Chris Pronger told the Orange County Register's Chris Zupke that the fact he'll reach a significant milestone in Detroit doesn't escape him:

February 20, Orange County Register: "It probably should have happened a while ago," Pronger said. "It's a tremendous honor. There's not a lot of guys that have been able to achieve that."

Coming into this season, there were 39 active players in the NHL with 1,000 games played, but only nine were defenseman.

Detroit isn't the ideal place to reach the mark. Pronger was on St. Louis Blues teams that were eliminated by the Red Wings in the playoffs four times.

In one of those series, the 1998 conference semifinals, Pronger left Joe Louis Arena in an ambulance when his heart stopped from being struck by the puck.

And Red Wings fans won't forget the elbow to the head of Detroit's Tomas Holmstrom in Game 4 of the 2007 Western Conference Finals that earned Pronger a one-game suspension.

Yet Detroit, per club policy regarding opponent's milestones, plans on recognizing Pronger during the first commercial time-out, a Red Wings spokesman said via email.

"It's funny how things play out," Pronger said. "There's a lot of history for me in Detroit, and certainly an opportunity to get it there is special - an Original Six team, Joe Louis, it's a nice place to have it."

No one's stated whether Jean-Sebastien Giguere will start tonight's game, but I'd suggest that it's a safe bet to slot him against Ty Conklin. The Free Press's George Sipple notes that the Wings have to shut down the usual suspects in his game preview...

February 20, Detroit Free Press: Overview: Corey Perry leads the Ducks with 20 goals, and Ryan Getzlaf is the overall leader with 47 assists and 66 points. Goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere has a 3.09 goals-against average and a .903 save percentage.

The Red Wings outshot the Ducks, 47-16, in Detroit on Dec.1 and have averaged 39.3 shots on goals against the Ducks over three games.

C Pavel Datsyuk has two goals and three assists against the Ducks this season.
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After a five-game winless streak left it eight points behind San Jose on Feb.1, Detroit has gone 7-1-1 to keep chase with the Sharks for the top seed in the Western Conference.

February 20, ESPN: Pronger, meanwhile, was so annoyed by the trade gossip originating from north of the border that he wrote a blog on his own Web site (www.chrispronger.com) last week, telling Ducks fans he hasn't asked for a trade and didn't want to leave Anaheim.

"In my opinion i believe the rumors are part of an overzealous group of reporters who are putting the Ducks in the 'sellers' category at the trade deadline and trying to drum up fan interest in there [sic] stories and TV shows," Pronger wrote. "They put us, the Ducks, in this category because we have not played up to expectations thus far. With 25 games to go [now 23] and around 10 [actually six] left before the deadline we hope to put these rumors to rest with the way we play the rest of the season and on into the playoffs."